Oh that I could learn to read!

Remember how I said the yarn I am using for the Forest Canopy Shawl (cherry tree hill) is the same weight as the yarn required in the pattern?

It's not.

I looked again while eyeing everyone else's versions on Ravelry and lo and behold, the original is made in an 8ply/DK weight yarn, hence the 5mm needles. Cherry Tree Hill is sock yarn, not 8ply.

Duh.

So this would mean that my move to a 4mm need is entirely sensible, not just a move made based on my desire for a smaller gauge.

So does this mean that a)I have good intuition or b)I'm just a poor reader of basic information? It's Friday and I'm grumpy so I'm going with the latter.

I think I don't have far to go before the edging is to be done. I wonder how much yarn I should save for that?


***

It's 32 degrees outside (or 89) and I've just had the most sticky, nasty bus ride home. As a reward, a chardonnay is chilling in the fridge this very minute, waiting to soothe me (sorry, us!) after the initial round of chores is done. Doesn't it suck, just a little, that you come home from work, only to keep working? Where's the fun in that?

And while I'm on random subjects, I'm reading around the place that knit blogging is being killed off by Ravelry. Of course that's been the talk since Ravelry took off, hasn't it? I'm pretty sure the lovely folk behind Ravelry had no intention of this being the case. It's just another place to explore our work and our ideas and visions, isn't it? I don't know about you, but my list of blogs to read in google reader certainly isn't even close to being empty when I open it each day. Clearly we're all still writing and loving doing so. Long may it continue!

Have a great weekend.

Bells

Made it

It's Friday thank God. Friday evening, more specifically. I've arrived, somewhat rung out and limping (not literally). But no matter, I'm here now.

The weekend promises much goodness.

First thing tomorrow we drive to Sydney to stay at my sister's house while she's in Germany. She texted me from a laundromat in Munich last night. I found that oddly funny.

I'm going wool shopping with a newbie knitter in the afternoon. She's made a beautiful garter stitch scarf in neutral tones and is ready for more.

Dinner with a friend of ours Saturday night.

Sunday brunch with RoseRed, Shazmina, BrownPants and (hopefully)Nora from Black Dog Knits. There will be talking, eating and knitting - probably roughly in that order. I've only met RoseRed before, not the other girls. This is bound to be a hoot and the weekend out of town I need.

Blogging sure has introduced me to some fantastic people. I love it for that.

***

I'm still loving Ravelry. I've slowed down in playing with it somewhat since it's kinda hard to do that at work, but it's proven most useful in just stumbling across patterns other people have put in their queues. Just by accident, I was looking at what Donyale had put in her queue and it alerted me to a pattern I'd never seen before and was exactly what I'd been looking for.

Ka-ching! If I had paid for membership, I'd say I was getting my money's worth already. I may have to donate.

***

I'm thinking of keeping a log of how many rows I get done of the steeked jacket, kind of like an accountability system. I get to report to you guys. I'll think about it. It's meant to be funny but if it feels like a burden I'll shove the idea.

Needless to say, I AM actually working on it again. I pulled it out last night and Sean declared, 'What? The steeked jacket sleeve? I don't believe it.' He was lucky I was working with a circular needle and not tiny, tiny little DPNs or he'd have been impaled with one.

Bells

More thoughts on ravelry and how it is not like MySpace (thank God)

I'm going to be doing a bit of this over the next few days, I think, writing about ravelry. So if Ravelry either doesn't interest you or you don't want the spoilers or you are insane with jealousy and not coping, now might be the time to tune out.

OK. Here's the thing, I quite enjoy a couple of fairly well known knitting podcasts - Lime and Violet and Stash and Burn. I also love Brenda Dayne's Cast On, but, you know, who doesn't?

The first two, if you don't know them, are hosted by two women each. They're each radically different in style and often content. Lime and Violet are outrageous, veer wildly off topic all the time and can get a little bizarre. Nicole and Jenny on Stash and Burn are almost the antithesis of this. Their shows are well structured and considerably shorter.

I like them both for different reasons. Some days I want the outrageous and bizarre world of L&V. Somedays they make my head ache and then I turn to Jenny and Nicole for interesting and insightful discussions on stash management or how to make yourself finish projects, that kind of thing. These shows make my bus rides and housework a lot more enjoyable. I've been listening for a long time now and feel like I know them a bit. The podcasting medium is like that. You're listening to friends having conversations.

This does not mean they are my friends.

I've found them all on Ravelry and have loved being able to look at their WIPs and UFOs, see photos of them and, gasp, figure out whether they're actually on line or not. Sure, I can do this via their blogs but until today, I've never actually looked at their blogs. I don't know why. I just listened to their shows and left it at that.

I noticed that the big names out there, including the Yarn Harlot, have hundreds of friends on Ravelry. I thought it was weird. Aren't friends people you either know or, in the case of blog readers, people who at least have some contact with you via your blog or theirs? Just because you comment a lot on the Yarn Harlot's blog, doesn't really make you her friend, does it?

I thought about it and decided to add Miss Violet to my friends list because well, she has a cool photo (she's a goth) and I will be watching her WIPs and UFOs with interest. It felt just a little bit sycophantic though. I'll probably go back in a moment and add Miss Lime, too.

If you think about it, on Myspace (which I loathe) you can add bands and other celebs to your 'friends' list as a way to keep up with what they are promoting or communicating. Cool, if that's your thing. If the Yarn Harlot was on MySpace, I'd add her to my list. But Ravelry (correct me if I'm wrong) isn't a place for the big names in our community to show case their work. We're all there to share ideas, lust over goodies and play together. See the difference?

This subject, or something akin to it, was eloquently raised over at Chronic Ennui. Ravelry is bringing a new level of intimacy to our online community. Instead of just listening to the podcasts and reading the show notes,we can kinda hang with them now in a way we couldn't before.

It's a new world!


Bells

How To Lose a Morning In One Easy Step

It's dead easy.

Wake up and discover your Ravelry invite arrived in your inbox as you slept.

Yes!!

I've just lost three hours without even noticing.

Initial thoughts are:

1. I will lose bucket loads of time in the first little while as I set up my profile, add project shots and generally spend a lot of time locating friends. It's a bit like arriving at a party that's already started. Someone just handed me a beer and now I'm off to check out the room and find all my friends.

2. It won't replace blogging for me. There's a way to have your latest blog posts show up but I haven't figured that out yet.

3. I've uploaded a few stash photos but so far am not entirely clear on the point of this - or rather, is my stash of interest to anyone but me in terms of management?

4. It's fun. Why else would I have spent a morning off knee deep in Ravelry?

Bells

I'm almost in!

I've been quietly checking my position in the Ravelry* queue for a couple of weeks now and as of this very morning I'm under 500! At this rate, I'll be in by the end of the week. If you didn't know, you can check your position in the queue here.


You signed up on June 5, 2007
You are #6759 on the list.
441 people are ahead of you in line.
12696 people are behind you in line.
32% of the list has been invited so far

There are loads of metaphors for this process.

Someone somewhere described the invitation that'll come from Ravelry as a golden ticket. I like that one.

I also think it's a bit like getting into heaven. If you're into that idea, then you know it's going to be great but no one can really tell you what it's like. You have to get there to really know.

And there are so many questions to ask on the journey to Ravelry.

Will it be as good as those who are already there say it is?
Will there be enough time in my already overcrowded life to add hanging out on Ravelry to my list of daily activities?
Will it add anything to my life that I don't already get from blogging?
Will my house be even more untidy once I make it to Ravelry?
Will my husband just go mental at me because he says I already spend far too much time online as it is?
Will I still have time to knit?

I really don't know the answers but I'm gonna check it out. I'm loving the anticipation but then I always have been a bit of a 'chase is better than the kill' sort of girl, which has led to some serious disappointment in life, let me tell you.

Bells

*Don't know what Ravelry is? Maybe you don't want to know. Finding out has been a bit like a virus for me. The desire to get to Ravelry is highly contagious and the symptoms are impossible to cure, once you're infected. Sometimes, it's just better not to know.